


Familiarity

by alternatealto



Category: House M.D.
Genre: F/M, NC-17, Prostitute, Season/Series 07
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-06
Updated: 2013-04-06
Packaged: 2017-12-07 16:39:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/750705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alternatealto/pseuds/alternatealto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one else sees House in quite the way she does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Familiarity

 

**Familiarity**

 

 

She stood on the steps, looking at the number.  _221B._   

Now that she thought about it, there were a lot of ways in which he reminded her of Sherlock Holmes.  She’d read all the stories when she was in school.  They’d been one of her favorite escapes, especially back in her teens when everything had started to go wrong, the way it does for almost everybody then.  Back when she’d first lost her way. 

Not that she’d ever really found it again, or what was she doing here? 

He was playing the piano; she could hear it through the door.  She didn’t really care for the music he liked, but sometimes it gave a clue to his mood, told her what to expect.  Tonight it was something she hadn’t heard before, something that managed to be sad and savage at the same time.  She pushed the buzzer and heard the music stop. 

The door opened, and there he was, looking down at her from his greater height.  She could tell from the way he stood that he wasn’t in the mood to talk tonight – well, the music had already told her that, but it was nice to know she’d gotten it right.  So she just smiled, and he pulled the door wider to let her in, limping ahead of her into the living room and hanging his cane on the cornice, the way he always seemed to do.  Then he sat down, watching as she set a few things on the table, tucked her purse discreetly out of sight at the end of the sofa and came to stand in front of him. 

He even looked a little like Sherlock Holmes, she thought to herself, or like the pictures that had been in the books, anyway.  Except she thought she remembered that Holmes’ eyes were brown, or maybe grey, and not the blue that still surprised her when she saw it, no matter how recently she’d seen it before.  They were half-hooded now, as he watched her. 

He hadn’t put any other music on, so tonight was a night when the one thing was the only thing he wanted.  Still, he liked it best when she didn’t hurry, when she gave him time.  She smiled again, and licked her lips; then, slowly, she started undressing:  unbuttoning her blouse, unfastening her hair, gradually getting nearer and nearer to where he sat as she moved and posed and stripped for him.  Naked, she spent a little more time posing, positioning herself in ways she knew he found stimulating, leaning over with her breasts close to his face, those blue, blue eyes. 

When he finally reached out for her, she resisted for a moment, coyly, then surrendered to the grip of his hands and sank down to straddle him as he sat.  Surprisingly, she could feel through the denim that he was already fully erect, not half-hard as he usually was at this stage.  He must need it bad tonight.  His mouth on her breast was a ring of warmth circled by the soft prickle of beard; she liked the way he suckled at her, needy but gentle, almost the way she imagined a baby might suckle there.  She let his mouth and his hands fondle her tits while she ran her fingers through the short, graying hair and settled herself more firmly against him. 

The motions were all so familiar, so automatic, that sometimes her mind wandered.  Now, for instance, she found herself speculating about what had happened to that other woman, the one she’d seen him with once as she sat in an upscale restaurant with her escort for the evening.  He hadn’t seen her, hadn’t even looked in her direction – all his attention had been on the woman he was with, short and slender with straight, dark hair and a slightly tawdry taste in clothes.   Pretty enough, if he liked them old.  She’d watched them together, and figured that was why she hadn’t heard from him in a while.  But maybe now he’d gotten tired of a woman who had to be past forty, or he was getting tired, or he just needed a change.  From the way he was responding as she moved over him, it was clear he needed something. 

She began to rock, slowly, pressing down, and his hands shifted down to her ass and his breath started to come faster.  She could feel his heat and the way his hips lifted a little, as his mouth fell away from her breasts and his head rolled back, eyes closed, mouth open, gasping slightly in time with her rhythm.  She moved more quickly, and he made a soft noise between a grunt and a sigh – the first sound he’d made, except for the wet sucking noises of his mouth on her flesh.  She pressed down harder, but he flinched, suddenly, and pushed her away.  She’d been trying to be careful of the leg, which she knew hurt him, but apparently it was more sensitive than usual tonight.  Carefully, she climbed off his lap and sat down on the couch next to him instead, sliding a hand under the black t-shirt, reaching for the fly of his jeans. 

He always wanted it this way:   his clothes on and hers off.  Over time, she’d learned that he was just that way, wanting to see all there was of someone else while keeping himself as much a secret as he could.  He wasn’t the sharing sort.  Now, though, his hands pushed hers out of the way and worked at the fastenings, folding back cloth until his erection stood free.  He was hot and thick and moist in her hand, and his eyes were staring at her again, watching as she picked up the lube from the table and spread it over her fingers, watching as she took him in her grip once more; watching, but telling her nothing.  Then they closed again as she stroked him, slow and firm, working him in the same rhythm she’d used to ride him earlier.  His fingers clenched, digging into the leather of the sofa; he made that soft sound again. 

The strident shrill of the telephone made her jump, breaking her pace, but he ignored it.  It rang again, and again, and finally an answering machine clicked on, telling the caller to go away and not bother leaving a message. 

“House?  House, are you there?  If . . . if you’re there, pick up.  House?” 

It was a man’s voice, a little high, a little rapid, almost stuttering. 

“Look, House.  Um . . . she just . . . Cuddy just called me.  She told me . . . told me she . . . _God_ , I can’t believe she’s doing this.  House, look, would you pick up?  I just . . . I need to know you’re okay.” 

He’d turned his head to look in the direction of the answering machine.  There was a tension in him that hadn’t been there before, but he made no move toward the phone.  That was rude, she thought – whoever it was at the other end of the line, it sounded like he was really worried. 

“Okay . . . I – I’ll just assume you’re not there right now.  I’ll try your – ” The voice broke off as someone said something in the background. 

“What?  No, I’ll just be a minute – ” There was a confused jumble of sound as if the phone was being pulled out of the man’s hands or something, an incoherent mixture of voices with a word or two surfacing here and there.  “Let . . . I’m not . . . Just . . .  _Yes,_ I _do_ need . . . stop . . . _Sam!_ ”  Then a quick rush of sentences: “Look, I’ll try your cell phone.  If you get this message, _call me_ ,” and the click of a disconnect. 

He drew a deep breath, pressed his lips together, and deliberately thrust up into her grasp, hard, as if to remind her that whatever was going on nearby, she still had a job to do.  She brought her attention back to him, stroking him harder and quicker, tightening her hold and twisting a little under the head on the upstroke.  It wasn’t long before his head was rolling from side to side, his hips lifting in quick, uneven motions.  He was making sounds again, a choked panting that sounded almost as if he were sobbing.  When the cellphone on the table started to buzz, she knew better than to pause in her motions, even when she felt him twitch slightly at the sound. 

It stopped, then started again, while they both paid it no attention.  Then he reached one hand to stop her, and she saw the flash of those blue eyes again as he indicated, silently, what he wanted.  She nodded and slipped off the couch to kneel between his spread legs.  This was the way he always wanted to end it – the way most guys did, in her experience.  With some of them, it was the worst part of the night for her.  But she’d never minded going down on him – he was always clean, he actually seemed to take care not to choke her, and it usually didn’t take him all that long to reach his peak.  He didn’t expect her to keep deep-throating him for half an hour while he held off, the way another guy had a few nights back. 

She wrapped her lips around him, just at the tip, using her tongue underneath, the way she knew  he liked it:  working him, taking him in deeper, humming around him, hearing the soft half-sobs that came involuntarily from his open mouth.  Somehow she managed not to bite him when the telephone rang again, loud in the quiet room. 

He went tense and still when the answering machine picked up. 

“House?  Okay, you’re not answering your cell, you’re not picking up . . . god, House.  I just need to know you’re _all right_.  House . . .?” 

He didn’t move.   She didn’t stop moving. 

“All right.  I . . . I’m coming over to your place.  I’m already in the elevator, okay?  House, _please_ . . . god, I could _kill_ her . . .” 

He turned his head to look at the machine. 

“Look, House.  Don’t . . . don’t do anything stupid, all right?  I’m really worried, here . . .  I’ll be there as soon as I can.” 

The machine clicked off. 

She took almost his full length down her throat, then pulled up, sucking, swirling her tongue. 

He was shaking. 

It took her a moment to realize it wasn’t with passion, that it had nothing to do with her.  But he hadn’t wanted her to stop before, so she didn’t now, opening her mouth, her throat, to take him all the way in, swallowing, pulling up slowly, all the way to the tip.  Then his hand was on her head, and he spoke to her for the first time that evening. 

“You can stop now.” 

Her gaze met his, and she noticed for the first time that his eyes were a little red, the lids just slightly swollen.  She released him and nodded, kneeling back as he tucked his already-softening dick into his jeans and zipped up.  Silently, she rose and picked up the lube; he grabbed his wallet from the table and handed her money – more than usual, she realized.  She retrieved her purse and stuffed the cash inside.  

“Thanks,” she told him. 

“Get out.”  He made no move to follow her to the door, staying where he was, a little hunched forward on the couch, head bowed. 

She couldn’t help turning in the doorway to look back  – and so her last image of him, the one that stayed with her as she walked slowly down the street, was the way he had turned to look at the phone again, and the desperate hope in his eyes.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was written during the disaster that was the "House, MD" 7th season. The backstory I made up for it was that Cuddy let it slip that she didn't really love House: she was faking, and had only agreed to a relationship because it would keep him off the Vicodin so she wouldn't lose her hospital's star doctor to addiction again. Feel free to substitute any other sufficiently devastating thing you'd like as a reason for what's going on here.


End file.
